Finally, Fiction

After a weekend of documentaries taking center stage, at least in terms of Sundance acquisitions, distributors stepped up to acquire the first three narrative features of the festival. The newly formed Overture Films picked up Mark Pellington’s dark comedy HENRY POOLE IS HERE, about a dying man who suddenly regains his lust for life. Fox Searchlight acquired CHOKE, actor Clark Gregg’s directorial debut adapted from Chuck Palahniuk’s novel about a man who fakes choking in restaurants to pay for his mother’s elderly care. But the big news was Focus Features purchase of Andrew Fleming’s HAMLET 2. Starring the sublime British comic Steve Coogan, the film recounts the hilarious attempt by a high school drama teacher to fix the problems with his drama department by staging a rather unorthodox sequel to Hamlet.